WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF HENS?

Hens came from Jungle fowl, found in the Far East. There were nesting boxes built into the Great Wall of China. Caesar noticed cockfighting in Britain, so hens had already arrived. In about 100 AD the writer Varro mentions battery cages for fattening fowl. One of the oldest breeds is the Scots Dumpy called "dumpy' because they were kept in the dumpy, the place under the house where one kept hens. There was a Viking influence on the breeds - they brought in spangled and pencilled coloured fowl. The Romans sacrificed hens to Mercury and when Rome fell to the Goths the then emperor was out of town tending his chickens. In the Nuns priests story by Chaucer, the cock is a gold Hamburg breed.